WaterboysFans - Review

THE WATERBOYS, COLOGNE
21ST NOVEMBER 2000
REVIEW BY MICHAEL MOENSTERS

Cologne was part 2 in the Mönsters Waterboys-shows this month.
As seems to be usual this week I was late again, this time heading for the
show with my wife, who still needed to be converted to the sonic rock. Up to
now LIH, DDTW and Crown were not her cup of coffee. Not at all.

We arrived when Adam Snyder was already playing and the venue was already
quite filled. No chance to get to the stage this time. So we took Harry's
advice to find a place near the soundman's desk as the sound should be best
there. It was. I recognized some of the songs Adam played in Rees and found
that I liked them much more on hearing them again. "Climax" of the set was a
version of Country Roads... I'm not sure if he was serious about playing it
or if it was just a joke. Good fun anyway.

After a short time of enjoying the intro-tape again the band entered the
stage to the sounds of NFOL and went straight into LIH which was as good as
yesterday. As I don't have a setlist of the show and didn't bother to write
one down I can only give a runthrough of the songs they did play: MLIMR was
Annette's favourite of the night and again it was grand. Strange boat was
majestic as well. Jonah, GS, ISC, ATT, TCL were all played before the
acoustic set though probably not in this order. RoP had a fascinating
piano-duel by Rich and John and sounded just great. No TPW-riff this night.
There was some annoying heckler in the back of the venue who kept on
shouting for TWOTM during songs. When Mike addressed him with "That's a
lovely voice you have!" to everyone's amusement he finally got quieter. A
mighty DDTW ended the first set.
The acoustic set had WYGA, which seems to be a standard in every set and
WITW. Again I was sure that it wasn't the best Mike and Rich can do and
again someone else (Annette) told me that she loved it. Oh dear...
But the twinkling highlight of the show was hearing Mike strumming some
chords and thinking "Yes, sounds like Sweet thing - but they hadn't played
it before on this tour. Could it be...?" When Richard joined in and Mike
sang the first few words I was electrified. It was a cracking version,
especially when Mike was obviously thinking about with what song to merge
ST. It was great watching Rich looking attentively to Mike and trying to
guess what would come next, adding nice touches of piano while he waited.
Mike then decided to do the "classical" version with Blackbird which I
haven't heard for ages. It was simply beautiful, like Mike was discovering
the words anew the very moment. A very quiet ending to the song and a
performance that was worth the ticket alone.
SEH ended the set thundering along and electrifiying the crowd. Everyone was
yelling for more after that. Encores were DBTD and, dedicated to the man
with the lovely voice, WOTM.
The crowd wouldn't let them go without another encore for which Mike and
Rich returned for a singalong-version of FB.

A great thing about being at the back of the hall was to be able to see the
lightshow better and generally having a better overview about what was going
on on stage and in the venue.

So at the end of the show I had another great night in my book and a
converted wife in my arm. Not bad!